


The Fixer

by meshkol (ashernorton)



Series: Endgame Fix-It Fics [2]
Category: Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 15:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18625618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashernorton/pseuds/meshkol
Summary: Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame!Pepper is a fixer.





	The Fixer

**Author's Note:**

> I reiterate: fuck everyone who works at Marvel Studios and choke to death on a prick.
> 
> Fix-it #2 of who-knows-how-many. Fill S-2 for the Tony Stark Bingo 2019: Experience.
> 
> [Translation in Tiếng Việt / Vietnamese](https://meomeoluoi0911.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/pepperony-the-fixer/) by [Kataly_Malfoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kataly_Malfoy/profile).

Everyone’s watching with tears in their eyes when Pepper arrives.

She doesn’t gently pull Peter to the side and whisper soft words to her dying husband, nor does she cling to him while she begs him to _hold on just a little bit longer_. She doesn’t scream or rage or weep or sprout out denials.

No, she’s a fixer.

She’s always been a fixer, since she was a child trying to mediate an argument between her preschool classmates about a toy and all the way until she was telling Tony on the couch of their home that he _needed_ to save the universe.

She’s always known that Tony would die in that suit, doing what’s right and protecting countless innocents, but that day is _not_ today.

She grabs Peter by the shoulder and throws him to the side without a single thought of being gentle, falling to her knees as her suit’s hand reassembles itself into what she needs. She doesn’t hesitate, simply grasping her dying husband by the hair and yanking his head to the side. She doesn’t care if it hurts him, or exacerbates his injuries, or if the people around them gasp and cry out with horror and surprise. The only thing she cares about is exposing his neck so she can stab him in his exposed neck with a needle, depressing the plunger on the syringe embedded in her Rescue armour and watching as lines of orange-red start bleeding into his veins.

Tony doesn’t scream, his vocal folds ravaged by the Snap, but he does seize and gurgle on his own blood, and Pepper laughs hysterically even as someone jerks her back with superhuman strength. She watches as Tony convulses, entire body lighting up with fire, and she can _see_ blackened fluids beginning to ooze from his pores and widespread injuries, can see his charred and broken body already starting to stretch and bubble as Extremis begins to work its magic, repairing his body and flushing out the radiation.

She has experience in this arena. She remembers what it felt like to have that serum forced into her veins, remembers the burning and the agony, but she also remembers scars disappearing like oil paint being smeared on a canvas, remembers feeling her heart beat stronger, remembers feeling the energy blossoming in her brain. She remembers seeing Killian’s body regenerate after being burnt alive and crushed, remembers seeing people get shot and ripped to pieces before their bodies regenerated in seconds, and she knew coming into this fight that the possibility of one (or both) of them dying was high – terrified that she would leave their daughter an orphan if they both died or not, there was no way that she wasn’t going to be prepared. Just in case. _Just in case_.

Tony’s always said that he didn’t want to repeat the cycle of shame, and is even more adamant after Peter. He had almost abandoned the time travel possibility because his love for Morgan had (and still does) overcome his need to protect and save the universe, and Pepper is glad she came prepared to fix things, because she cannot allow him to fail on that promise to himself, even if he had wielded the gauntlet _to_ protect Morgan and countless others from universal extermination.

“Oh my God,” she hears Bruce whisper as Tony’s skin goes from red and yellow from organ failure to dark and flushed with blood, as his hair regrows and his arm snaps when the bones unbreak, as his vocal folds finally repair enough for the screaming to start, as his body rapidly goes from dying and broken to healthy and whole, and all she can do is _laugh_.


End file.
